Drone usage within the Real Estate Industry

The 2016 Member Profile provides data on drone usage within the Real Estate industry. This question was added to the Survey in 2016, and provides information on current drone users and the optimism around drone usage in the future.

Amongst real estate professionals, 23% of respondents personally use drones, has a colleague who uses drones or hires a contractor to operate drones for their business. Interestingly, 16% of respondents hope to use drones in the future.

Commercial real estate specialists rely more heavily on drones than their residential counterparts. For example, 5% of commercial appraisers personally use drones and this number drops to 3% when asking the question to residential appraisers. Similarly, within property management 6% of commercial managers personally use drones and amongst residential the number decreases to 3%.

International real estate specialists use drones the most, with 7% of commercial and residential professionals both personally using drones. Within the United States this number falls significantly with 3% of drone users in the West, South and Northeast and 2% of drone users within the Midwest.

Of professionals who have completed over $ 10 million of real estate transactions in 2015, 7% currently use drones, 8% have a colleague within their office that uses drones and 34% hire a contractor.

Twenty five percent of individuals who are twenty nine or younger hope to use drones in the future making this age group the most optimistic.